


Shield Dragon

by clown_city



Series: Dimilix Week 2021 [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Crests (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Hand Worship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29505618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clown_city/pseuds/clown_city
Summary: Felix keeps a secret under his gloves.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Series: Dimilix Week 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172840
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Shield Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> day 4 - secrets
> 
> some messy war phase early relationship dimilix for uuuuuuuu!

"Felix," Dimitri said, shoulders jumping at the sound of the bedroom door slamming behind him. "A-are you going to tell me about your—"

"I wish you hadn't brought it up at the dinner table," Felix snapped, interrupting him.

"I-I apologize," Dimitri said at once. His gaze dropped to the floor. "To be fair, however..."

Felix marched past him to throw his cape over the back of a chair, and finished Dimitri's sentence. "...people don't  _ normally _ wear gloves to meals.  _ What if you get food on them, _ right?" He huffed a sigh as if abandoning all mockery. "...I've heard it a hundred times before."

Dimitri licked his lips slowly, carefully working out how best not to prod his Felix when he clearly needed comfort, not confrontation. "The reasons you've given me," he said slowly, "have been different multiple times, Felix. I would be inclined to believe them all true to some extent, if you weren't so insistent on each one. You see why I feel you're hiding something from me, don't you, my dear?"

Dimitri knew how attached Felix was to his gloves. His hands were more treasure to him than any mortal possession, and he rarely removed their soft leather covers. In intimate moments, Dimitri sometimes saw them, felt their touch, but exclusively on Felix's terms. This was not the case in their younger years; his hands were bare far more often than not.

There was a tense pause. "You brought it up at the  _ dinner table, _ _"_ Felix hissed.

"I'm sorry. I'll make an effort to be more conscientious of my words when we're in public from now on."

"Good," Felix said firmly, then took a long, deep breath as if to steady himself. His face was silhouetted dark before the grey glare of the clouds outside the window. "Dimitri," he said, "I am going to tell you why I so rarely take off my gloves."

Dimitri's heart raced. "You don't have to," he said, "I would hate to encroach on your privacy."

Felix shook his head, and reached for his wrist. His body cast a shadow over his work as he tugged his left glove off, and something inside snagged, pulling the leather as it slid from his hand.

What greeted Dimitri's eye was something halfway monstrous. His skin was still the same color, but had begun to, for lack of a better word, solidify. Plates of hard, keratinous tissue had started to form on the back of his hand and fingers, and his nails had thickened and darkened. If it were to develop further, plates tempering into a firm armor, sharp finger segments jutting out over knuckles, his hand would look much closer to a dragon's talon. But now, it was still distinctly human.

It was if Felix was refusing to meet his eye. "It's not that bad right now," he said, and there was some strange, foreign quality to his voice. He stifled a choke.  _ Oh. _ "At its worst, I get—" A gulped back sob. _"_ _ —claws... " _

"Don't cry, Felix," Dimitri tried to soothe, and reached out to take his hand.

His grasp closed around thin air; Felix had yanked it close. "No," he snapped, "I don't want your touch."

Dimitri blinked. "Why not?"

His eyes darted frantically, side to side, in at his scaly hand, finally landing on Dimitri's boots. He exhaled thickly, still staving off tears. "Fuck, this is awful," he said, "but the reason I kept this hidden was because... because of you. I saw you as a beast, and I hated the fact that I could somehow be less human than  you. " There was a shadow of near-genuine malice in this last word, bringing to Dimitri's mind a memory of hurt that had long since faded to numbness.

"It's because of the Aegis Shield," Felix continued, "and my Crest. When I was a kid, it happened in waves. Nothing noticeable. My nails got thicker, my skin less supple, but I thought it happened to everyone." He swallowed and sniffed, and looked back up at Dimitri with clearer eyes. "Then I got the Shield, and it started getting—" he flexed his fingers open, "—worse. The proverbial wounds from our past had barely scabbed over, and there I was. Monstrous, just like the person I held... very complicated feelings toward." He kept his hand close, but moved an inch closer to Dimitri, and Dimitri instinctively moved back. 

"I don't feel that way anymore," Felix pleaded. "...I love you. Keeping it a secret is just... an old habit I've yet to get rid of."

Dimitri swallowed. "I forgive you." The words tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to think; did he forgive Felix, what was there to forgive, what even was forgiveness; these questions swirled in an answerless eddy up through Dimitri's head until one thought was left— he couldn't be angry at him for something so simple as wearing gloves.

"We have healed," Dimitri said, clearing his throat. "We've healed greatly over the years. I won't spite you for any healing you have left to do."

Felix seemed to melt a little.

Chuckling, Dimitri continued. "I of all people cannot. But—" He paused to try and read Felix's posture; he was still guarded but more relaxed than before. Shoulders tensing as if in shame, Dimitri leaned forward. "I would like to hold your hands."

There was a long pause. "Sure," Felix said. 

Brown leather streak-marked black from years of swordwork, soft wool matted from use, both gloves fell to the floor.

Gently, Dimitri took his hands into his own.

"I-I'm human," Felix said, vaguely frantic now. "You know that, right?"

Dimitri nodded. "I do," he said, then paused. "I am human as well."

Felix seemed to blush, fingers squirming slightly in Dimitri's hands. "Yes, Dima," he said softly. "You— we are."

Smiling, Dimitri bowed his head, and pressed a kiss to the back of his right hand. The hard tissue was rougher than expected under his lips' sensitive touch. Though the pale bones and long extremities were once the coolest part of Felix's body, they held an subtle innate warmth now, like a tree's trunk in the dead of winter. He kissed downwards, over the jutting scales of his fingers, ears attuned to every hitch and release of Felix's breath.

A slow, deliberate sigh.

"Beautiful," Dimitri spoke into the space between his knuckles.

"Yes," Felix whispered, "Those words mean something to me."

"I'm glad—" he answered, looking up into Felix's eyes.

"I was talking to myself."

He blinked, and let his lips return to their work.

"I am in love with this man," Felix continued, louder this time. "He loves me as I am, and I love him as he is."

Dimitri's heart swelled, and his lips kept moving, tracing the contours of Felix's plate-encrusted hands.

"I no longer need to be afraid."

He turned his hands to kiss his palms, still soft unlike the hard and ragged backs.

"I no longer need to be afraid," Felix repeated.

Dimitri's lips found the rise of a dry, callused joint, and he gently sucked like one taking nectar from a flower, careful not to dirty his palm with too much saliva. If Felix dug his fingers in right now, he could likely puncture the skin under Dimitri's chin, he realized. But his hands were both open. No weapon clenched therein, not balled into compact fists, as if in stark denial of the shieldlike plating that covered them did Felix's hands form a gesture of peace.

"Oh, Dima," Felix said, and all of a sudden the hands were gone; he had thrown his arms over Dimitri's shoulders; crowned by a halo of light from the window behind him Felix fell into his kiss, Dimitri wrapping him tight in an embrace like it was what he was born to do. A few pinpricks of snagged hairs on the back of his scalp told him that Felix had woven his hands, his beautiful Shield-bearer's hands into his hair.

Dimitri broke away after a moment, breathless and lips shamelessly wet, forehead and nose still pressed against his beloved's face. "I love you so much," he said, then paused to gather himself. "I love every part of you, Felix."

Felix made a sound that seemed part laugh, part sob, but when Dimitri opened his eyes and pulled away, there was only a blush on Felix's face.

Dimitri stuttered his next words. "I-I hope my love may show you how beautiful you are, Felix. That— That is if a boar's love means anything to you."

"It does," Felix said at once, now so clearly suppressing a smile. "Moreso than anything else."

Unable to think of the right words to say, Dimitri spun ninety degrees, such that the window light illuminated half of Felix's face. At the touch of a claw brushing a hair from Dimitri's eye, he realized that half of his face must be illuminated, too.

"After all," Felix said, "you're  _ my _ boar."


End file.
